No, not another conspiracy thread. I'm wondering about phone numbers to call for emergencies.

In the 'states we have 911 for fire, paramedic and police. Here where I live, there is 1144, or 1142, or some other number I can't remember. I don't even know which is what. Is there a general number to call for emergencies?

And are these numbers regional? What if you were travelling through some village and had an emergency?

Just for information. I don't have an emergency at the moment.

An internationally recognised emergency number is 112. It's all you need. Goodness knows how you remember the different numbers here in CH... "now, you get the kids out while I call the fire service...Oops! Mountain rescue, sorry... try again..."

As uncle max pointed out - 112 is all you need. Just a few more details: 112 from a landline will usually work in most european countries. If using a mobile phone then 112 will map to the emergency services in any country you happen to be in, even the US.

Dialing 911 from your mobile in Switzerland will also map to 112 - I guess they did it for Americans who aren't aware of their local emergency number, or the international one...

I'm changing the subject of this thread from "911" to "Local emergency phone number".

And thank goodness we havn't descended into a 'My 911 is faster than your M3' conversation. There are too many of those conversations in ZH...